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This any help. Setting them up is a fiddly op. Back the adj. off a bit more and try again.

Thanks for your advice & in particular the diagram that isn't shown in the Haynes manual, at least it showed me that nothing was missing. Handbrake is working fine in both directions now. Thanks again for your help.

Having checked Haynes against VIDA the instructions are basically the same. The complete assembly should be assembled and the shoes adjusted to bind the drum then slacken off 4-5 notches. Then the handbrake cable should be adjusted so that full braking force is achieved at 3-5 notches on the lever ratchet. The adjusters must be working, otherwise you would not be able to apply and release the handbrake. I think the adjuster works on the floating principle, whereby it expands one shoe to touch the drum, then uses that leverage to expand the other shoe to tighten both equally in the drum, thus eliminating the very issue you are experiencing. It does seem odd, when everything is presumably adjusted correctly. Perhaps not much use, but hope it helps.

Thanks for your help, handbrake is now working perfectly in both directions. Had the drums off again today & noticed the shoes weren't making contact with the lug at the bottom of the back plate so slackened the brake cables & started again. Once the drums were refitted a few taps with a hammer on the face of the drum centralised everything, adjusted the shoes until they were binding, backed them off 4 notches, put he wheels back on & dropped the car off axle stands & hey presto! I had a fully functioning handbrake. Minor adjustment on the brake cables through the centre console panel & everything is spot on. Thanks again.

I'm watching this with interest as I have the same problem as Tony. It is not that the handbrake does not work, it works just fine in a forward direction, it just does not work in a backwards direction, that is to the extent that in what appears to be a flat carpark if I park facing 'uphill' the car will roll backwards but the handbrake works sufficiently well that it passes the MOT when tested in the 'normal' forwards direction. I've been adjusting drum brake shoes since my first Mini (BL not BMW) back in 1981 so I think I'm across the 'tighten it up till it binds and back it off two notches' scenario. The V70 handbrake seems almost to have some sort of cam action going on that allows the wheel to turn backwards but not forwards.

I'm starting to incline towards a problem with the cables as like Tony comments when the car is raised it all seems OK but when it hunkers down on the suspension it goes weird, similarly when using the handbrake on a hill the forwards/backwards force of the weight of the car will make it lever itself against the suspension arms, and then the brake plays up.

See my reply to ITSv40 for your solution. I tried all the usual methods of adjustment to no avail, seems the Volvo method is different to the usual way. Once I started again after much head scratching I worked out the cables were too tight & the expander wouldn't allow the shoes to seat against the lug at the bottom of the backplate. Once this was sorted out I was able to adjust the shoes in the recommended way. Hope this method works for you, my handbrake works fine in both directions now. Good luck!

Well I didn't feel like it at the weekend so I attacked the handbrake this afternoon. I took out the centre console so I could see what was going on with the handbrake cables at that end, not too tricky a job and it meant I could see the adjustment and do it so much quicker than fiddling through the bottom of the cubby hole in the armrest. The cables were running freely so I slacked them right off and set to on the drums/discs. I undid the caliper bolts to give the room to get the disc off but didn't need to disconnect the hydraulics, with a bit of dexterity I popped the disc off and put the caliper back with the bolts done loosely to save it dangling.
Inside the drum the shoes are virtually free to float about, the only fixed point is where they rest on a projection from the backplate by the lever that operates the handbrake, the adjustment screw is free to move where it wants. Looking over all the bits, the adjuster was in good condition opening and closing easily and the handbrake activating arm/lever was good, the cables were free at the drum end, so far so good. The rest stop at the bottom of the backplate/shoes was a bit crusty with corrosion so I gave that a little attention with the tip of a file to clean it off. There are also a couple of bolt heads on the backplate at the bottom which the activating arm seems to rest on. I reassembled everything with some dabs of copper grease and making sure the activating arm was resting on the bolt heads rather than getting caught beside them and put the disc/drum back. Having the console out meant it was easy to tighten the cable in order to give the handbrake a few pulls to settle the shoes then slack it back off to do the adjustment. A few cycles of adjust tighten on off on off slacken adjust seemed to get to a good point, and then repeat the whole thing on the other drum.

I now have a handbrake that works both forward and backwards!

A few extra observations- even now the handbrake is more effective forwards than backwards, which I suppose is what you want as it is also an emergency brake if your hydraulics fail, and in road testing it and bedding in the shoes that's all done going forward, but I haven't tested it parking facing up a proper hill yet. When I was removing the calipers both of the inner pads were very difficult to remove being jammed in with dirt and corrosion, that is consistent with the state of the calipers when I replaced all of the back brakes about 3 years ago and the inner pistons were seized too. There's not a lot of adjustment left on the handbrake lever but at 20 years old perhaps that's to be expected.

Thanks for the help and tips, hopefully that's a problem solved for me and some info for anyone who's looking in future.